Labour’s press release on their rent caps announcement this morning claimed that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) was helping them draw up the policy. Labour said:

“The legislation would place an upper ceiling on any rent increases to prevent excessive rises. This would be based on a benchmark such as average market rents. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors is already examining what an appropriate benchmark might be.”

Yet this seems to be the first RICS have heard of this. A spokesperson for RICS tells Guido that rent caps “were not part of our recommendations”, that “we are not working on rent caps” and that they are not helping Labour come up with a rent cap “benchmark”. Guido understands that RICS is “looking into” what happened and has contacted Labour to ask them why this was included in the press release. Oops…